I just received the s500 to supplement my 300d- my decision was influenced by all the positive feedback on this forum.

I've only had a few minutes to play around with it, but so far I'm very disappointed with the indoor focusing (or lack thereof). I've taken a number of pictures of my daughter from a distance of about 10 feet and they have all come out soft or blurry. I use auto and flash. I've noticed the shutter time on some of the shots is a lot longer compared to my 300d. The pictures were taken around 3PM - it's gray outside, but still light.

My old Olympus 2020z did a lot better job than this.

Am I expecting too much from this camera? Any feedback will be appreciated.

I had the same experience..... blurry pics. Until I discovered that the lens was at digital zoom. Check if your camera is zoomed using digital zoom which gives very poor pics. I have avoided using digital zoom ever since.... its totally useless. Just use normal zoom.

I'm curious about the slow shutter speed. Most digitals have a fixed shutter speed for flash, and with a point and shoot like the S500 I'm curious how you are getting anything but 1/60 with flash. Some Sonys use 1/45, but most cameras including Casio use 1/60.

If you were zoomed out when you took the shot the flash range at zoom is only 1.4 meters or about 5 feet. Since the flash wouldn't really be freezing the action at 10 feet, a tiny camera held out without a viewfinder for a steady hold might give some blur at 1/60 with a 117mm equivalent focal length.

Set the camera on something or use a tripod if you have one. Use the self timer. If you are still getting blur you might have a focus problem.

I'm curious, too. With llash, most cameras use 1/60 second anymore. A few models may use something as slow as 1/30 second with flash, but that's relatively rare anymore.

Personally, I keep my little Konica KD-510z set to 1/30 second or slower more often than not, though (it allows me to set the slowest shutter speed it will use with Autoexposure in different flash modes). That way, I pick up a bit more ambient light.

Are you sure you didn't have it in Night Portrait Scene mode? That mode will expose the image based on ambient light, then fire the flash at the end. So, that means much longer shutter speeds.

With most compact models (unless you have the ISO speed bumped up), the flash itself can freeze the action indoors. That's because at the settings normally used by a non-DSLR model, the subject is only exposed properly during the flash burst (and the flash itself is very fast). If you have a lot of ambient light coming in through open windows, using an ISO speed set too high, and a shutter speed set too slow, can cause some issues, though.

Are you sure you've got focus lock when you take these photos (half press first and make sure it locks).

You might also want to do a "Reset All" from the Setup menu (to return everything back to factory defaults), in case a setting is messing something up.

As Slipe suggested, post an example with the EXIF still intact (don't use save for Web if using Photoshop). A free editor that can resize the photos for you is available at http://www.irfanview.com (you can resize under the Image/Resample menu -- and I'd make it about 640 pixels wide so it'll fit here in the forum OK). Then, use the Save As menu choice to give it a new filename, and make sure the retain EXIF box is still checked (it is by default with a new installation).